This invention relates to the field of lathes and more particularly the invention relates to a lathe for resurfacing brake drums and rotors.
It is common practice when servicing the brakes on vehicles to resurface, in the case of disc brakes, both sides of the rotor to maintain parallelism between the surfaces, and, in the case of drum brakes, to turn the inner surface of the drum so as to maintain a brake surface concentric with the drum rotational axis. These resurfacing operations are normally performed on lathes specially adapted to mount the rotor or drum to be resurfaced. From a service, and principally in regard to efficiency and profitability standpoint, it is highly desirable to have a lathe that can resurface either rotors or drums. And, it is highly desirable that such a lathe requires minimum manipulation of tools or modifications when changing between work pieces. In addition to resurfacing brake parts, other parts such as engine flywheels frequently require resurfacing for proper clutch operation. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to have a lathe also capable of resurfacing flywheels as well as rotors and drums. Providing for such a lathe eliminates separate machines for each type of work piece.
Heretofore, a single lathe has been able to service rotors, drums and flywheels, but has required time consuming steps of removing and replacing the various boring bars and cross feed tool holders and cutters for use with the particular work piece. Additionally, these multipurpose prior art machines have been limited in the maximum thickness of the rotor or flywheel that can be accommodated.